Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/286

 ing of a Pegasus winged or otherwise. Its lofty summit is streaked with snow nearly the entire summer, and it is of itself one of the most picturesque and prominent landmarks of the surrounding country. From its higher altitudes you get a splendid glimpse of what Joaquin Miller would call:

Scenery to inspire poetical imagery in the dullest mind greets the visitor to these Alpine heights. If our comrade with the Pegasus habit failed to take advantage of the situation, it was not the fault of the scenery. Possibly he was too busy with other reflections. And then big mountains are too common, and too hard to climb, for all to get a front seat in our literature at the start. To be satisfied that Sam could do good work in this line, one has only to read his royal tributes to "Hood" and other peaks. And after he has once clothed a subject, be it mountain peak, gurgling brook, flowing river or waterfall -- with the classical garniture so richly provided by his poetic fancy, it is a little bit discouraging for any other genius to try to handle the same subject. Hence I am led to regret that our "Old Grayback" -- despite its unlyrical name -- did not get a poetical lift at his hand. That is about the only important "lift" it is now seriously in need of.

It was after a hard day's travel that we reached the caves, oil a western spur of Old Grayback, and struck camp in the heart of the Siskiyous. But alas for the man who was subject to bibulous temptation, some parties had been there just ahead of us and left a part of a bottle of liquor leaning up against the rocks, with its mouth open, ready to make a most tantalizing appeal to any comer afflicted with a chronic thirst. We watched Sam carefully as he eyed his familiar enemy, but he soon turned his attention to something else, with the remark that if he had run across that a day or two sooner he would have felt forced to make use of it. During the night he got up,